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Why I Won’t End Up on Hoarders
I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with my new friend, Helga. She doesn’t have much of a brain, but she’s got a killer bod. Helga is a dress form mannequin. Yes, I now own a mannequin. And I named her. Let me tell you, doing Google searches for mannequins ends in some creepy results. I know my husband loves me because he didn’t bat an eyelash when I took Helga out of her giant box, assembled her, and immediately proceeded to play dress up. I bought Helga to aid me in styling clothing for my shiny new Etsy store, CleverlyCurated. I’ve been amassing a collection of vintage and…
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Looks of Ski Seasons Past
Generally, I’m a summertime and sunshine kind of girl. But I have to admit there are a few things about winter that I like. Skiing is at the top of the list. I smile, or maybe grimace, when I think about some of my ski outfits from years past. As a pre-teen in the late eighties/early nineties, I loved my neon pink Columbia jacket that reversed to electric blue. I even had neon pink goggles to match. Then there was my shiny purple Nevica jacket with its gimmicky avalanche alarm stitched into the shoulder–just what every fourteen-year-old ski bunny needs. In high school I rocked a very aprés look, with an iridescent…
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Why We Write
Ask any writer why he or she writes and you are likely to get the answer, “Because I have to.” You’d probably get this answer from a bestselling author who’s on deadline to deliver her next manuscript. And you’d probably get the same answer from an unpublished teenager who taps away at a computer in her parents’ basement. One makes money from writing, the other doesn’t. At least not yet. So money doesn’t explain the need they both feel to write. I recently read an article by Ann Lamott that, for me, explains this need. She says, There is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can…
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So Much to Celebrate
On New Year’s Eves past, I’ve stood with my toes in the sand on a Mexican beach, danced on a ballroom floor in San Francisco, bummed a seldom cigarette at a Chicago bar, cozied up with Fat Tires and football in a Colorado condo, and waved my arms on many a curbside, shivering and looking for elusive empty cabs. This year, I’ll be all of two blocks away from home, celebrating with close friends and a tribe of tots aged 3 months to 3 years. The gathering will be modest, but never have I had so much to celebrate in bidding farewell to a year. In 2011, I finished a…
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A spicy recipe for the solstice
The winter solstice is upon us, but before we can look forward to incremental surges of sunshine, we first need to get through the darkest day of the year. If you need a recipe for comfort food to ease the way, chef Dani Lind has a recipe for sweet potato and black bean chili in the winter issue of Edible Madison magazine that might help. The recipe goes along with an article I wrote on how local potters are organizing grassroots events to fight hunger by donating their artwork. The sweet potato chili recipe was served at one of such events. Besides being delicious, the recipe is healthy, too. Perhaps I’ll whip up a…
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A very vintage holiday
The holidays are a nostalgic time, so vintage touches fit right in with the spirit of the season. Some of my favorite tree trimmings are beaded bell ornaments made by my grandmother, and mod foil balls I picked out from a dime store when I was a kid. Nearly everyone in my dad’s family has a light-up ceramic tree like the one shown here. Starting in the late 50s, you could buy molds for them, and they were a popular craft item. Even the littlest member of the family will be in on the vintage theme this year. My 5-month-old son will be wearing the 1970s toy soldier romper shown…
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Blogs to Books
Yep, I’m that person. The person who buys books for everyone on her holiday list. What to get Dad who returns nearly everything I buy him? Books. What to get my nephew whose Japanamation jargon resembles a foreign language? Books. And what to get my niece who, like me when I was a kid, aspires to be a writer? Why, blank books, of course. One of my favorite blogs, Style Maniac, recently teamed up with independent bookseller Books & Books of Westhampton Beach, NY, to launch a month-long celebration of the art of giving and receiving books. The Blogs to Books challenge invited readers to choose one book and one recipient…
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Literary Looks: The Great Gatsby
There are people who live in my head. I’ve collected them over time, over thousands of pages read everywhere: on subway seats, in library cubicles, under the covers, over the moon. The best of these people are realer to me, and more enduring, than many flesh and blood faces that pass through my days. Characters they are not. Rather, they are icons. This second installment in my collection of “Literary Looks” is inspired by one of such paper icons: Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby. Daisy. The socialite. The cynicist. The girl with “the voice full of money.” Her style represents all the hope and flash and fleetingness of youth.…
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A Mad Holiday
A Mad Men party hosted by ReThreads, my favorite vintage store? Yes, please! You can bet I’ll be going to this. Good think I saved my cat-eye glasses and 60s shift from my Mad Men birthday party last year… MAD MEN HOLIDAY SOIREE “It’s December 17, 1962 and you work for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. This is your office holiday party. Break out your swankiest 60s garb and head down to Madison’s oldest and classiest theatre for an unforgettable night of style, sophistication, and pure fantasy. We’re doing this party up right.” Expect the following: • Martinis & Fancy Vintage Cocktails •…
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Hot Toddy Time
I hate to see summer end, but there are a few things I like about fall: football, tall boots, pumpkin bread, and hot drinks. My husband, son, and I recently visited an apple orchard near Lake Kegonsa just outside of Madison. Since our son is only 3 months old, we eschewed apple picking for simply buying a few bags of fresh McIntoshes and Empires and a half gallon of fresh cider. At our house, cider is the main ingredient in one of our favorite fall beverages. My husband modified his recipe for hot toddies from an episode of Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee that he caught while flipping through the channels. I wonder…
a blog on fiction, fashion, food + family